The bigger Walker Arts Center is attempting to reinvent itself while it expands. “The Walker seems to be one of the few places in the world that tries tackling the progressive element of each art form. The MOMA doesn’t do that, the Guggenheim doesn’t do that, the Whitney doesn’t do that.”
Month: April 2005
A Museum To Atomic Testing
The Atomic Test Site Museum has opened just off the Las Vegas Strip. “The 8,000-square-foot museum, which opened in March, is the fruit of a decade of work by the Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation. The ticket booth resembles the site’s guard station; the movie theater looks like a bunker. “Countdown to next show,” flashes an ominous red clock. A roar and a blast of air greet visitors in the concrete theater.”
Berlin Symphonic Orchestra Disbands
Members of the Berlin Symphonic Orchestra bid farewell to their fans with a last concert on Sunday after orchestra officials failed to secure 80,000 euros ($103,000) in emergency funding for the bankrupt organization.
A Fight Over Which UK Orchestra Is Best
Does England have only one “world-class” orchestra? So says the departing chief executive of the London Symphony, and guess what – he believes the LSO is the only orchestra that counts. And guess what – managers of two of London’s other orchestras take issue with the claim. And critics are now pouncing on the LSO for some of its decisions in recent years.
Met Broadcasts With Commercials?
For all those years that Texaco sponsored weekly broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera, the broadcasts were run free of interrupting commercials. But the Met can no longer afford to compensate commercial stations for the commercial time. “With the reduction of fees to commercial stations, the cost of the broadcasts will be $5.6 million instead of the usual $7 million. To help the stations make up the lost subsidies, the Met will create 7 to 10 places for advertisements during intermissions , depending on the length of the opera.”
In Art: 100 Naked Women And Some Scuffling To Get Close
An Vanessa Beecroft art happening at a museum in Berlin featuring 100 naked women caused a commotion at its opening. “Scuffles broke out late last Friday as people tried to jump over the barriers to get closer to the women, aged between 18 and 65, wearing see-through stockings and greased with baby oil, who arranged themselves according to the instructions of US artist Vanessa Beecroft.”
Denver Hall Needs $40 Million Fix
An acoustical fix for Denver’s Boettcher Hall is going to cost more than $40 million. Last year the director of Denver’s Division of Theatres and Arenas, estimated the project’s price tag at $25 million to $40 million. But he now says he believes that “when the firm completes the second half of its study later this spring, it will recommend gutting Boettcher and essentially building a new, reconfigured concert hall within its existing walls.”
Beecroft And The Case For Nude Women
Vanessa Beecroft’s performance in Berlin with 100 naked women is her biggest show ever. Certainly, there is plenty about Beecroft’s work that is voyeuristic. The most interesting aspect of the new work is “its almost calculating cruelty: this evening’s public performance lasts for three hours. Apart from the odd stretch and yawn, the women are instructed to remain as still and silent as possible. Towards the end they can lie down. Yesterday, at the preview, attended by dozens of journalists and TV crews, several of the “girls” as Beecroft calls them sat down exhausted. Most looked distinctly bored.”
The Problem With Martha Graham
“She is, indisputably, one of the key choreographers in the history of Western dance. However, more often than not, the work of the last third of Graham’s long career was inflated and vague, almost to the point of self-parody, and thus hardly worth conserving in the active repertory. So the viable Graham canon is limited and, though the power of the company rests with the great old works, neither the troupe’s audiences nor its dancers will accept having their experience confined solely to these pieces.”
A Boston Billion-Dollar Arts Boom
Boston is in the midst of spending more than $1 billion on new arts facilities. “The projects are varied, ranging from a contemporary art museum on the waterfront and downtown theaters to a pair of cultural centers slated for open space created by the Big Dig. ‘It’s staggering. Boston has always had a lively cultural scene, but I think we’re seeing the kind of arts renaissance catching up with the tremendous revitalization Boston’s undergone over the last 25 years’.”